the curious case of the French word ‘oignon’
Decided by the Académie française, the erroneous spelling ‘oignon’ (= ‘onion’) has become a symbol of prejudiced people, ignorant of the history of their own language.
Read MoreTag: food
meaning and early instances of ‘full English breakfast’
UK, 1933—a substantial breakfast including hot cooked foods such as bacon, sausages, eggs and baked beans
Read Morethe various figurative meanings of ‘dirty spoon’
UK, 1849: cheap dingy eatery, as a translation from German—USA, from 1862 onwards: brothel, squalid lodging-house, bar; 1897: cheap dingy eatery
Read More‘greasy spoon’: early instances; connexions with German
1850, in The Times of London, apparently as a translation from German—later instances (Minnesota, 1891-98) also associated with German to an extent or another
Read Moreorigin of ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’
UK, 1892—postdates by several years variants such as ‘eat an apple on going to bed, and you will keep the doctor from earning his bread’
Read Morethe sexual meanings of ‘crumpet’ in British English
women regarded collectively as objects of sexual desire; sexual intercourse—first recorded in ‘The Gilt Kid’ (1936), by James Curtis (Geoffrey Basil Maiden)
Read More‘cheese-eating/tea-drinking surrender monkeys’
‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’: the French people (USA, 1995) from The Simpsons—‘tea-drinking surrender monkeys’: the British people (Ireland, 2004)
Read More‘ploughman’s lunch’: meaning and origin
1957—coined as a marketing term by the Cheese Bureau, an organisation formed to promote the sales of cheese, when it began encouraging pubs to serve this meal
Read Morethe history of ‘dog’s breakfast’ and ‘dog’s dinner’
UK—a confused mess—alludes to the jumbled nature of a dog’s meal—‘like a dog’s dinner’: over-elaborately or ostentatiously dressed
Read Morea hypothesis as to the origin of ‘to get down to brass tacks’
USA, 1868—‘brass tacks’: the nails studded over a coffin, hence figuratively the end of any possibility of deceit, the return to essentials
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word histories 